Saturday, January 26, 2008

Eight Lambdas and two esteemed colleagues waltzed into Karazhan this morning and downed Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, Crone, and Curator in just about 3.5 hours. Nice! Many phat lewts were obtained, including Legacy for our hunter friend and T4 gloves for Crushey.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Nola recently picked up her Karazhan key and decided to check the place out. It's quite the intimidating place for a tiny gnome!

Undaunted, Nola walked up to the gate and unlocked it using her shiny new key. The gate popped open, and in she went, only to find herself staring at the front door.

After seeing this door, she has some suggestions for the tower's staff on accommodating their smaller guests. At any rate, nobody answered, so she figured she'd save them the trouble and let herself in.

In the tower's entry, she introduced herself to a friendly and well-dressed doorman, who told her a bit about the tower.

Seems like such a friendly fellow... Now why couldn't he have opened the door? Anyway, she figured she'd start her tour at the stables.

Quite an offer! Can you believe he refused? Nola decided to spare him (this time), but Mr. Midnight is certainly off her Christmas card list. She headed back to the main ballroom but got a bit lost on the way...

Yikes! They should clean out this place a bit more carefully. Good thing those spiders weren't too bright... Anyway, she eventually made it to the main ballroom.

Quite the party! Nola was excited to see so many other partially-visible guests, but they didn't seem to notice her. It's probably for the best--she's not much for dancing with giants, particularly when they look so hostile!

Unfortunately, some of the tower's staff members weren't quite as welcoming as the doorman.

A quick apology (and a Vanish, for good measure) kept things peaceful, and Nola managed to make it to the banquet hall. Seizing the opportunity, Nola tried to dance on the banquet table, only to have her offer rebuffed in a most uncivilized manner.

Honestly, she has never seen worse treatment of a friendly (and tiny, and mostly invisible) guest. Next time she'll be back, and with reinforcements! Pointy reinforcements...

[time passes]

Sure enough, a few months later, Nola is back for a second visit to Medivh's famed tower! She was invited to visit the tower by nine of her closest Alliance friends (well, eight friends and a really surly dwarf), and she allowed them to witness as she single-handedly delivered Midnight's comeuppance. She decided that it was rather rude to take all the fun and challenge out of her friends' visit, though, so she kindly allowed them to fight their way through the rest of the tower without her assistance. Despite the fact that they no longer had the benefit of her legendary combat prowess, they seem to have done well for themselves. Nola visited the tower after their departure for a quick victory lap, and she took some photos while she was at it...

First, we have the aptly-named "broken stair". It's a stair, and it sure is broken. It seems everyone is so enthralled with the opera house downstairs that nobody has managed to maintain the rooms upstairs.

Thankfully, the tower isn't all so unsightly. It soon leads to a quaint hallway ordinarily watched by the so-called Curator.

Honestly, Nola questions the taste of any "Curator" who chooses to display those green-eyed gargoyles. Yecch. But you ain't seen nothin' yet...

HOLY MOTHER OF MEKKATORQUE! They put a giant statue of a freakin' dwarf in this place? Not even Blackrock Depths was this bad. Nola posed in front of it, in order to suggest a more suitable subject matter, should the owners choose to commission some new art.

Next up, we have the library, and what a library it is!

Truly dizzying! Nola was hardly able to take her eyes off the architecture, until she happened to spy a familiar-looking name in the corner.

Sadly, he assured Nola that he has no knowledge of this "Gravalun" fellow [ed: guild 'lock] and fears that he may be some sort of imposter. Oh well!

Anyway, you recall that this is a library, right? The kind where you store books? Well, not this one!

FIRE! It's a fire! They're burning books! What kind of twisted library is this? No help came, though, and Nola felt it would be a bit suspicious to stick around.

Fortunately, the rest of the library contains a number of books that are not currently on fire. In fact, there are a number of distinctly non-fiery books lying around, and I do mean lying around. Honestly, it's enough to cause anyone with a library science degree to rupture an artery or three. Nola made the best of a bad situation.

Even up here, though, the place is littered with the results of what is, frankly, some pretty sloppy bookkeeping.

To be honest, Nola was beginning to tire of all of these ridiculous books. Many of them weren't even legible! When she found a friendly Ethereal fellow lighting another fire, she felt quite sympathetic.

Thankfully, that was just about the end of this ridiculous library. Next up was a quick detour to the observatory!

Quite the chess board, eh? Nola didn't seem to fit in with those orcs, and despite her encouragement, the footmen wouldn't budge an inch. This chess board wasn't quite what it was cracked up to be.

Beyond the chess room was the entrance to the chambers of Medivh himself.

Seems like some sort of whacked-out wizard sauna. Nola tried to relax, but she could swear one of those statues was looking at her. Anyway, if you're wondering who designed this place, check out the next room:

This is probably where Medivh and his wizard buddies go to get high. That explains so much...

Next, a quick pit stop at a rather large bed.

And finally, we've made it to the top of the tower!

Check out the dragon in the distance. Neat, eh?

You might think that this is it, but apparently Medivh figured out how to add on a whole lot of extra real estate to the top of this place. Need more square footage to sell the place? No problemo!

Whoa. Now that's spacious!

Looks like this is the end of the line, though, so there's only one thing left for Nola to do... Strip down to the tabard and leap to her death in the library! Goodbye, cruel world!

So ends another chapter in Nola's exploration of Karazhan. Tragic! Next time, though, next time...

Saturday, January 5, 2008

But what's the best choice for general questiness? For 30 levels, I've run with a Felguard. I love him. I attempt to keep him alive in instances. He looks really cool. But is he better than the voidwalker for general running around? For 30 levels I thought i knew the answer. Now i'm not so sure.

For those of you who are more baseball statistics-minded (read: not me) here's the stat breakdown for a lvl 70 warlock, 42 Demonology, 19 Affliction.

----

Voidwalker

Felguard

Health

7014

5010

Mana

4658

4127

Str

153

153

Agi

108

108

Stm

457

457

Int

326

280

Spr

122

122

Power

634

630

Damage

139-171

228-282

Spell Bonus

+91

+90

Armor

9384

8503

---

reduces

reduces

---

damage 47%

damage 43%

Felguard does have Cleave and Charge and a better taunt than the voidwalker. Voidwalker has Consume Shadows and sacrifice. When i run with the blueberry, it seems like he dies more, but that might just be an impression.

I don't really play by statistics because I've always suspected they don't give you the whole picture. Looking at the stats for Felguard vs. Voidwalker, it seems that the voidwalker is the better choice. But is it? Am I missing something? I think so. But what?